


World of Tres

by TheDarkestDandelion



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Affairs, Angst, Ardyn Izunia Being An Asshole, Ardyn Izunia Needs A Hug, Betrayal, Character Study, Developing Relationship, Devotion, Ending Relationship, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Established Relationship, F/M, Forbidden Love, Friends to Lovers, Hatred, Heartbreaking, Hurt No Comfort, Implied Sexual Content, Loath, Loneliness, Love, Lovers To Enemies, Lust, M/M, Obsessive Behaviour, Possessive Behavior, Sex, Sorrow, comparisons, happiness, power
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-15
Updated: 2021-03-15
Packaged: 2021-03-23 04:35:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30049989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheDarkestDandelion/pseuds/TheDarkestDandelion
Summary: Ardyn Izunia aka Lucis Caelum had loved three people in his entire life.Firstly, the Oracle, Aera Mirus Fleuret, who was beautiful, kind and gentle.Secondly, the Scientist, Verstael Besithia, who was mad, alluring and hungry for power.Thirdly, the Immortal, Cor Leonis, who was loyal, brave and dangerous.This is the tale of how he fell in love with all three of these wonderful people and how all of his relationships came to a crumbling and heartbreaking end.
Relationships: Aera Mirus Fleuret/Ardyn Izunia, Ardyn Izunia/Cor Leonis, Verstael Besithia/Ardyn Izunia
Kudos: 7





	World of Tres

**Author's Note:**

> Something I have been working on for a while and now I can finally share it XD 
> 
> I hope you enjoy all of this!

**Aera Mirus Fleuret:**

She was his first love. 

And he loved her deeply. 

Aera Mirus Fleuret came to live with them when she was seven and he was twelve. 

She had come to his family home because they were to wed when they both became of age. Intentionally, Ardyn resented that, for he didn’t know her and they were both far too young to ever be thinking about spending the rest of their lives together. Yet, his mother was persistent in her claims and insisted that he try to get along with her. 

To his surprise they did get along and quite well at that. 

He was humble and rather soft-spoken, whereas she was loud and happy and got in his face a lot. Oddly enough, it didn’t irritate him. He enjoyed her company and he liked listening to her speak about ancient ruins and flowers. She was very passionate about everything she did and he admired that about her. They were fast friends and she would always defend him when Somnus tried to push his buttons. And he’d always stick up for her when Somnus said she was a girl and that meant she couldn’t do certain things like fight or train with weapons. Trust was gained from there on out and so was joy in the knowledge that they both had a friend who would support them no matter what. 

As the days turned into years, and their friendship turned into love; suddenly that arranged marriage didn’t seem so much like an inconvenience anymore, he was rather looking forward to it. Aera already made him smile, made his heart warm and she was beautiful. She was stunning and he knew how lucky he was to have her by his side. She’d supported him through his devotion to their gods and determination to heal those infected with the plague that brought monsters lurk in the night. She was there when he was too exhausted to move and look after him until he was rested enough to carry on, and in doing all of this for him, it made him forget about the crumbling world at their feet and the burden he was forced to bear. She made him forget his troubles and made his day so much brighter. The thought of spending the rest of his life with her… it took his breath away. 

They made promises to each other. 

Once the world was free and everyone in it was safe, they would marry, have children and - if he was chosen by the six - rule this land peacefully and with a just hand. The truth of it though was that Ardyn didn’t care about the healing. He didn’t care about the throne or the possibility of children. As long as he got to wake up to Aera’s beautiful face each and every day that would be enough for him. That in itself was all the determination he needed to complete the task that had been set before him. His love for her. 

But not everything was rosey. 

He was getting sick. He knew he was getting sick. Very sick. And he refused to let her see it. He refused to let her see what the healing was doing to him. He refused to let her know the pain that was swarming around his head as the monsters began to take over his being. Because if he let her see… she’d want to help him and tell him to stop saving their people… he couldn’t do that. His life meant nothing compared to all of their people and her own. 

Her life meant he had to push on, that he had to save the world for her, so she would be safe. 

However, this was where their relationship started to fall apart. 

Arguments were had because he was becoming more withdrawn so she couldn’t see the pain he was suffering through. She got frustrated and angry with him as she knew he was keeping things from her… but he didn’t think he had another option but to be silent. Because if he confided in her… it would be dangerous for them both because Somnus would know what he was turning into. 

A monster.

That was why he left for weeks on end to protect her from his brother. 

That was a mistake though. 

Their fights, his withdrawal, him leaving without so much as a goodbye… Aera soon fell into his little brother’s arms. 

Aera thought he didn’t know. 

Somnus thought he didn’t know.

But he did. He could see it when the three of them had dinner together. The looks she used to give him, she was now giving to Somnus. The way she insisted that he go to bed because he needed his rest and that she’d join him later. She was only doing it to jump into Somnus’s bed. And the victory on Somnus’s face… that he had won her and Ardyn had been left out in the cold, while the pair laughed behind his back.

She broke his heart. 

She tore it to shreds and yet he still worshipped her. He forgave her, every time she warmed up his brother's bed. He loved her regardless because he felt like he was the one who caused this by keeping silent about his condition. That he had formed a rift between them and he deserved the pain she was putting him through. That he deserved all this sorrow and pain because he was a monster. So what else did he deserve? He didn’t deserve her. He didn’t deserve someone so beautiful and kind as their Oracle, the maidan chosen by the six themselves. 

However, none of that meant it didn’t hurt. 

Because it did hurt. 

It would always hurt. 

She was his first love and she was the first to break his heart.

* * *

**Verstael Besithia:**

He was his second love. 

And like the first, he loved this man deeply. 

Ardyn was so devoted to Verstael Besithia, the man who freed him from years of endless isolation and insanity, that he strove and vowed to give the scientist everything he was and everything he had. 

Verstael may say words he did not understand, he may do things like experimenting on defenceless beings, he may even lament about subjects that he cared very little for but it didn’t change the fact what this mad scientist had gifted him. He got him off that cursed ground and gave him warmth once more. He gave him a bed, clothes, food, water, a place that he could finally call home after so long. Words would never be able to express how indebted he felt to this man and because of that feeling, he more than happily agreed to do whatever he wanted. He agreed to be whatever he needed him to be. Like the monster who would finally take out Lucis because that also meant that Somnus and his line would be gone. 

But it didn’t start out as love, that came later. 

In the beginning, he could tell Verstael was thirsty for him. He was the one who pushed for more information, called him a ‘marvel’, saw beauty in the monster he was when no one else could, not even Aera could do that for him. Of course, Ardyn was more than flattered and actually found the march hare look in blue eyes more than alluring. Yet, because of the betrayal, Aera had committed against him he didn’t know if he could allow this tension to be any more than just tension. 

Until one night, where Verstael made him feel like the most important, most powerful man on the planet, by telling him where his brother's tomb was and giving him the means to destroy it if he so wished. There were no strings attached. It was a simple gesture of goodwill and ever since then, Ardyn hadn’t been able to keep his hands off the insanely clever scientist. 

When the sun disappeared from the sky, they’d make love and whisper sweet nothings at each other. Verstael would even call him a king, no, one better than that, he’d call him a god. The god of death. The god that was going to reclaim what was rightfully his and more. Because of that, he showed him what he was. Not once did the blonde-haired man flinch. In fact, he embraced what he was and kissed his lips dripping with the black substance of the scourge. It fascinated Ardyn to no end. Letting this man go would never be an option. Not ever. Verstael was all he had ever wanted in a partner. Someone who cared and loved him for him. 

He got his wish. 

Yet, it still wasn’t quite right. 

Their fast love turned into obsession and possession, just as quickly in the time it took for the King of Light to finally be born. 

Ardyn obsessed over Verstael and his drive to put an end to the gods - like he had killed Shiva all for him - and he vowed to give Verstael the world because of it. If anyone had a bad word to say about his lover, they didn’t last long. Verstael was his and no one was allowed to hurt him. 

And Verstael’s possession over Ardyn was not healthy either. He lusted over his power and pushed Ardyn to want more, to do more unspeakable things that the mortal version of the ancient being housing millions of monsters would be ashamed of. But Ardyn didn’t see a problem with it. He thought it was love and he wasn’t ashamed. He was blinded by love and their common goal. Their common obsession with seeing Lucis turned to ash. Ardyn cared little for Niflheim’s rule but if Verstael was sitting at the top of it all and he was by his side… he didn’t care. 

Sooner rather than later, when the King of Light was about eight, things began to change in their relationship. 

They were both so obsessed with Lucis's demise that they couldn’t see what was happening to their relationship. 

Verstael was cloning more MT’s for their armies, furthering his research and working days and nights to get odd breakthroughs so he could find more ways to destroy a nation that was already on its last legs and he was neglecting Ardyn for it. 

Whereas Ardyn, was watching the small boy, hating him because he looked like Somnus. It became apparent that he couldn’t really tell the difference between Somnus or Noctis anymore and it was all he could talk about. All he could think about was ending that wretched boy’s life to make Somnus pay for ever thinking he could hurt him and take everything he had. 

They were so lost in their obsessions, that they drifted apart and broke each other as a result. 

When the other wanted attention, the other would reject them too wrapped up in their own thoughts and that rejection; it turned their hearts into ribbons. 

Rejection slowly turned into resentment and sure enough, by the time the prince was sixteen years old, they hated each other. 

Ardyn wanted Verstael gone.

He didn’t want to deal with his endless rambles anymore or his scientific research because he thought, no he knew, Verstael cared more about technology then him and had only used him for his brain.

He did love him.

But he also broke his heart. That was something Ardyn could never forgive. 

Yet, by ending things with Verstael, Ardyn tore the man’s heart out. 

Once upon a time, Ardyn would have given Verstael the world.

But in the end, they broke each other and there was no coming back from that. 

* * *

**Cor Leonis:**

He was his third love, although he was never meant to be. 

Unlike Aera and Verstael, he didn’t want to or mean to fall in love with this man.

He never planned on meeting him, just one day on a trip to the luxurious resort of Galdin Quay, Cor the Immortal literally ran into him knocking him into the sand. Angry didn’t even begin to describe how Ardyn felt about being tactacled to the ground and despite knowing full well who the other was, the Marshal apologised to him and even offered to buy him a drink to further his apology. 

That was when an idea hatched in the Chancellor of Niflheim’s brain. 

It was a simple idea. 

A simply marvellous idea, that couldn’t possibly go wrong.

He was going to bed the Marshal of the Crownsguard and use affection and recklessness to get at the secrets that someone as close as Cor was to the King of Lucis would know. On paper it was brilliant. Genius in fact. Ardyn just didn’t account for how stubborn and loyal the Marshal was. He seriously had to work hard for even the chance of a one night stand. He had to stalk him and ‘bump’ into him multiple times and convince him to spend more time with him because they never discussed work; it wasn’t treason on the Marshal’s part. 

But the more he worked the deeper Ardyn fell into a hole, one he could not escape from because by the time the Lucian warrior finally agreed to share his bed for the night, Ardyn was in love. 

Madly and hopelessly in love with the fearless and boisterous guard. 

That was what caught Ardyn’s attention at first. At how brave the man before him was and yet that bravery greatly confused him. 

Granted Cor didn’t know what he was and never would but still...

Why wasn’t Cor the Immortal scared of the daemons when everyone else - minus Verstael - was? How could he keep his cool when staring into the face of death and never allowed it to win? How could he always come back from a fight alive even with the odds stacked up against him? 

The bravery pulled Ardyn in and he didn’t want to lose him. He didn’t want to go a single day without seeing his face or those beautiful blue eyes. 

Whereas for Cor, he found the Chancellor of Niflheim dangerous. He was someone he was never meant to be near or interact with and because of that he grew addicted to his presence. The Marshal was a danger magnet after all, and even if he didn’t know it, Ardyn was the single most dangerous being of all and he was sleeping with him. 

So their union kept happening. Their lust for each other raged on like a wildfire and they kept seeing each other. They kept kissing each other, they kept touching each other, they kept making love to each other and… it turned into love. Ardyn knew it was love because he no longer wanted information out of Cor and Cor told him that he shouldn’t do this because he was loyal to his King but he never wanted to see Ardyn walk away from him either. They admitted it. Their feelings and from that day on their relationship was a secret. 

It had to be a secret. 

They were enemies fighting in a war, where their union would never be accepted but they still found a way to see one another, to love each other, despite the risk and the pain it could cause to so many people. That risk, prove to Ardyn that this was more than love. That this was something he had never felt or had before. Ardyn was in so deep, too deep for his brain to even comprehend and that made Cor the Immortal dangerous.

So dangerous that not even Bahamut would dare mess with the Marshal of the Crownsguard’s fate.

Because unlike Aera, who Ardyn would have saved the world for, or unlike Verstael who he would have given the world to, Ardyn would destroy the world for Cor Leonis. He had the power to do just that. He would gladly do it if it meant Cor was safe. 

That was how hard he had fallen in love with this man. 

It hurt so much when he realised it couldn’t last. 

Ardyn, despite his love, was still the Adagium. He still had a job to do. He still had his revenge that he had to follow through with and unfortunately, ending the line of Lucis and all it stood for... he wanted it more then he wanted Cor’s love. 

The peace treaty came and the King and Shield were no more. 

The Marshal of Crownsgaurd ended up hating him. 

They met up not two days after the fall of Lucis and Cor screamed at him, told him that what they had was a mistake, that he couldn’t bear to look at him for what he had done. That he hated him for being one of the causes for his brother’s death and that he now thought his lover as a cruel manipulative monster. He told Ardyn he loathed him and that he wished he had died instead of the King and Shield. He screamed in his face that he never wanted to see him again and if their paths did cross, he’d kill him. Cor would take out his heart and would not lose any sleep ending him because that was what a monster like him deserved, eternal damnation. 

When Cor walked away from him, he cried. 

Because unlike the last two times where his heart was broken by someone else, he had done the breaking. 

He had broken Cor Leonis’s heart and he was never getting it back. 

Not ever. 

That single thought… it tore the Adagium apart.

* * *

Ardyn had loved three people in his life. 

All three people left it in ways that hurt him beyond his imagination. 

In the end, the only person he could blame for it all was himself. 


End file.
